Public Transport
Dail Éireann — 2026-09-24
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Ciarán Ahern (LAB), Dublin South-West

I thank the Minister of State. Often when I ask a question of the Minister for Transport, I am fobbed off to the NTA because I am asking about operational matters but this is a funding matter. It is a hugely disappointing decision from Government and a baffling decision in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis and a climate crisis. The current policy has been working for the Government. It is a really popular policy with the public, it is politically popular and I am baffled as to why the Government is doing this when we know that the low-fares policy is incentivising people to use our public transport. It is just so disappointing and hard to understand. We can support, rightfully, one cohort of transport users, namely people who drive and are reliant on their cars and of course, we should be supporting them with reductions on VAT and excise, but at the same time, we cannot be pitching public transport users against these other users of transport. We have to be supporting everyone, which is why this decision is so disappointing.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-09-24/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:50+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-09-24